TMV has occasionally gets new readers and we’ve had some since the elections. This is to clue new readers as well as old ones in on some changes and to restate how it works here:
There are differing center voices. If you look at any election poll you will not see that 100 percent of the centrists, moderates and independents voted the same way. Nor will you find people on TMV all agreeing with each other. Sometimes the agreements are big ones.
We feel differing ideas don’t cause brain cancer. If we do a roundup it will include links to blogs of all types. We routinely link to blogs on the left, right and to the centrist blogs, which are probably linked the least on the blogosphere. If you see a news post, oftentimes you’ll see links to stories written from varying viewpoints.
We have run Guest Voice posts from readers who have something to say. These aren’t posts that are in attack mode, hurling adjectives around. But they can be strong opinion analyses. These are from people who don’t have blogs or bloggers who have something thoughtful to say to our diverse readership.
We are adding some new cobloggers. Each has a different perspective and style. This weekend passions ran high, even among our cobloggers. I have asked everyone who writes on this site to email their concerns to me in the future about the site and we can discuss it privately.
But this site changes in character each day (or even hour) depending on who is writing and what the subject that’s being addressed. One day it may seem squarely centrist; another more to the left; another to the right. How do we know this? Because we have lost readers (and some people who left tips in the tip jar) who were angry if the site didn’t contain THEIR point of view and definition of the center every single day. There may be wonderful sites where you can go to read everything you already believe. But that is unlikely to happen here since we encourage dialogue and different viewpoints.
Our blogroll is constantly changing. We eliminate inactive sites and add new ones to our Left, Right, Center and Other categories. This is a WORKING blogroll that I use so I don’t leave anything on it that hasn’t been updated in weeks. (If your site has been removed and you are updating it please contact us).
Someone commented that the site has “jumped the shark” due to some posts. No. The point is that this site is constantly changing every single day with a variety of links and the occasional Guest Voice post or even Guest Voice DVD review.
There is a common thread and it is that it’s written from the perspective of centrists (who can be center left, center right or center and passionate and respectfully disagree with each other) and the independent voter who tends to read, think, discuss and then decide. Some on the left and right think this constant evaluation is a weakness; centrists and independents tend to think it is a strength. People do disagree..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.